- Norway reopened five gyms in Oslo in May, allowing half of its members to return while following certain protocols.
- Scientists tracked the experiment. According to a new pre print study of their findings, no one got infected with Coronavirus from the re openings.
- The experiment shows that gyms may be able to reopen safely — if infection rates in the area are low and people adhere to guidelines.
As gyms around the world continue to welcome back members, five gyms in Norway that reopened May 22 are shedding a light on how it may be done safely.
The gyms were a part of an experiment in which half of the members were invited back — 1,896 people in total — and told to follow certain precautions like washing their hands, practicing physical distancing, and not using the sauna or showers. They didn’t have to wear masks.
Meantime, the study authors kept tabs on the health of the other 1,896 people who were not allowed to return to the gym. They wanted to find out whether the gym-goers were more likely to come down with COVID-19, the disease the coronavirus causes.
After two weeks, only one coronavirus case was detected, and that person — assigned to the gym-going arm — hadn’t visited the gym until actually getting the test, and so didn’t pass it to other exercisers. No one in either group went to a health clinic or was hospitalized due to the coronavirus.
The results, detailed in a not-yet-peer-reviewed pre-print, show promise for gyms, places many have feared could become sweaty settings for superspreader events.
But the findings should also be taken cautiously: Oslo’s infection rate is low and continues to decline, and gym-goers, all of whom had no underlying conditions, took the precautions seriously.
“I personally think this is generalizable, with one caveat,” Dr. Michael Bretthauer, a cancer screening expert at the University of Oslo who co-led the study, told the New York Times. “There may be places where there is a lot of Covid, or where people are less inclined to follow restrictions.”